


Abel to Abel

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Game: Resident Evil 7, Gen, Implied/Referenced Physical Violence And Its Aftermath, Insecurity, Relationship Study, Sibling Bullying, Sibling Rivalry, Toxic Masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Ever since they were little 'uns, Joe had loved the hell outta being tough. Jack hadn't ever been quite sure how he'd felt about it, but he'd assumed that it was a necessary, important thing to be.
Relationships: Jack Baker & Joe Baker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Abel to Abel

Ever since they were little 'uns, Joe had loved the hell outta being tough. Jack hadn't ever been quite sure how he'd felt about it, but if strong, wild, whoopin'ly-happy Brother'd been so proud of it, he'd assumed that it was a necessary, important thing to be.

There'd been a lot a' trouble with that.

Tough ain't a thing you can put into a bag and weigh, or stretch out and measure with a ruler, and so Jack had tried to measure his own tough as best he could, all based on how he knew Joe had it, 'cause he god-damn said so.

Their ma'd call them in from the backyard porch just as a truck started pullin' up from the road, and as they came in to the sound of dinnerware clinkin' while she set the table, so too did they come in to the front door creakin' as their old man came trudging in from a long day's work.

"How's my little man?" their pappy'd say, voice lifted and touched with a laugh to meet Brother's shout-out-loud and grin.

Jack would step up. "And there's my boy," would be the greeting he got. "You been lookin' after your brother 'n mama for me...?"

He'd guessed, fair enough, that that'd been only 'cause Joe had been the first-born. He _would_ be a _man_ first.

Still made him feel mighty small.

Smaller, still, he'd felt when he and Joe'd finished aidin' Pappy with the _men's work_ of the house - the carpentry, the yardwork, the heavy lifting, the patching leaks and pipes with weighty clanking tools, all with Jack never seein' no difference in the workload between his brother and himself. When they wrapped up rounds of three-man baseball, or either of their folks refereed 'em taking turns through makeshift obstacle courses or runnin' laps. Joe would snicker at successes and tasks wrapped up, and flexed his young-scrapper arms and lanced kicks at the sheet metal leanin' against the side of the shed to let it _CLANG_ , all to show off his growin' strength. Pappy would snicker, slap him on the back, 'n urge him to _build that bulk!_

Felt different somehow when Jack did the same, taking his turn, flexin' and kickin', too. The _snicker'd_ seemed only like _laughter_ ; the pats'd seemed lighter. Less honest.

When he looked back on it as a grown man, tryin'a see what Pappy must've saw, he hated the way he looked back then - a broad-shouldered but scrappy kid like Joe'd been. Bespectacled and mousy-haired, not like Joe at all.

Finally, he'd arrived on the determination that the only way to really compare his _toughness_ to Joe's was directly. One-on-one, man-to-man combat.

Joe'd always loved a good wrestling bout; he'd often enough be the one who started it. He'd pounce Jack with a grapple when their folks' backs'd been turned, and Jack, fire in his blood determined _not_ to be playin' around, would grit his teeth and hurtle his weight back against him. At first, Joe'd startled, recoil - still grinnin' all the same like it _was_ still all play, then steel himself up and _tackle_ with a regular doglike growl.

Jack had also resolved himself to show a little more _nerve_ by this time. Even if his real proof'd come in _finishing_ it, he'd wanted to show that Joe weren't the only one bold enough to provoke a fight. He'd started some fights the same way Joe did - tackles and grabs, shoulder-shoves, goin' all the way in right off the bat. Joe'd tease him, and rather than take it as humor the way he would've done before, Jack would defend his honor. Give Joe _warnings._

And Joe would respond with a glint in his eye, _still_ grinnin' as one for whom a fight weren't nothin' but fun, and square himself up, gettin' into _wrassling_ posture. "Yeah?" he'd bark, all full a' vigor. "I back off, or you'll _what...?_ "

Either way, one'd dare the other.

And either way, Jack would find himself not proven just as _tough_ but with spots a' weakness found and splintered. Scrapes and bruises, an arm twisted behind his back and a face full a' mud, broken glasses, busted nose, busted lip, a whole day dizzy, whole body _crashin'_ into the muggy water o' the swamp and hobblin' out covered and dripping with slime.

He sure had _tried_ not to cry at the aches and stings and swellings, even as he glowered with prickling eyes at Joe, backin' up once he'd registered he'd won, punching both fists into the air with a _whoop_ , or turnin' around, dusting his palms off against each other before castin' back a look and a flashing smile and a taunt.

"You thought you was gonna beat me that round?

"You're a _wimp_ , Jackie! How 'bout you don't be a sore loser and not forget about it this time?"

He'd succeeded, mostly. If he'd cried, it woulda made Joe right.

They'd both get back inside. Sometimes Jack'd clean himself up - sometimes, Ma'd catch him before he could, and do it for him, giving Joe a scolding befitting of a mishap during roughhousing.

No use cryin' over a _game_. One of the benefits of Joe bein' as _tough_ as he was, Jack had decided, was that all a' this _could_ be _just a game_ to him, and Jack was hell-bent on behaving on the outside like someone who saw it that way, too. He knew if roles'd been reversed, _Joe_ wouldn't've cried over a little broken nose.

He'd just have to wait for those _shattered spots_ to heal up, preferably not as _weak spots_ no more, and try again, and again, and again.

When Joe'd enlisted in the armed forces, hopin' to do something _heroic_ with that spirited, unstoppable toughness of his, Jack hadn't had any way to fight him anymore besides _do as he does_. Meet the action with an equal and stronger reaction. Follow with that stone face - ain't no use cryin' - not to be left behind, and hope that takin' the same course spoke to meetin' the same capacity.

When he and Marguerite'd found their firstborn on the way, Jack had once again mentally mapped back the motions, vowin' never to stand down if challenged. Step to someone strong, and you _oughtn't_ be simply allowed to win easy, he'd learned; it weren't _shit_ to someone tough-hearted to put you in your place. And you had to own it, _earn_ your credit, and learn how to play the game.

...Oh, that that old fight _had_ made its way even into thoughts of raisin' a household

While he'd been courtin' Marguerite, for a time, there'd be only them. He'd come out on the other side o' that with her, and just that - a household only theirs. There was nothing more _honest_ to strive for, or, for that matter, worth fightin' for for _real_ than family.

And yet they still weren't Jack's _only_ family.

And lookin' at Joe, now old and bearded and muscle-bound from huntin' and rowin' and woodwork, out in his shack way out on the waterside with only the gators and bugs for company, a dullness starts to fill his head and an uneven space starts to turn in his guts as he thinks that the only fight he _has_ won that Joe ain't is the only one, between them, that the latter never even showed a lick of interest in fightin' for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Or: "In Which I Love Joe Baker, But HC That He Was Kind Of A Shitty Kid And Sibling".
> 
> Written for r/FanFiction's November 2020 prompt challenge. November 7th: "To Toot One's Own Horn".


End file.
